Being a brand new player to sim leagues, all of my experiences have been authentically brand new and unique. During the DSFL draft, I did not know what to expect. I did not know how a player could improve their draft stock, how GM's rated prospects, nor how the league functioned in general. I simply spent my days trying to learn how to navigate throughout the whereabouts of the league and find a balance between real life and sim life. I had no emotion in the DSFL draft because I had no standard to know if I did well or poorly before the draft. I did use those experiences to help me approach the NSFL draft.
I used what I learned to become a viable prospect in the league: I became the 3rd highest TPE-earning cornerback, I slid into the top 25 of TPE in my class after being at the default 50 entering the pre-season, I started writing various media pieces, I became more active in discord and the forums as I learned my way. All in all, I became a sponge, attempting to soak up all the information I could as use it to help me build my draft stock as high as possible.
I made an emphasis to promptly return all scouting messages, after a haphazard showing in DSFL scouting where I missed about 4 teams interviews. This time around, only 3 teams did not reach out to me, two teams in the Pacific Time Zone and one in the Eastern Time Zone, but two of the teams had real life issues that prevented them from properly scouting this season. So I definitely became a made man with the effort I put in.
The issue I expected was that I would become too good at a position of need and it would deter teams from trying to trade for me as the risk would be too high versus keeping extra picks and hoping I slipped deep in the draft. The fact I was a corner, I knew I would go in the first two rounds, I just didnt know where because of this dilemma. If a team took me over other max earning players, it would be a reach meanwhile, if teams let me fall to the 3rd or lower, I had a high chance of going anywhere as I would be one of the bigger steals going that late.
The other issues was players willing to position switch to fill in a hole on the team. We had a lot of high earning defensive players overlapping at the same positions and I felt that if teams with a hole in their CB pool passed me, then they hopefully had a plan for someone to position switch or any other alternative plan.
The teams I did expect to draft me were: Sarasota - because they were brand new and could use high earning players, plus they had two first round picks. Philadelphia - because they only have two corners on their depth chart(NSFL and DSFL) and one has stalled out in the low 200's of TPE. Yellowknife - because they only have two natural corners like Philadelphia, but their corners are S17 and S13. Orange County - because AJ Lattimer is retiring and they had no extra DSFL DB's coming into the draft. Baltimore was one of the teams, I mentioned earlier about not scouting me, but they had current players and ex-players in my locker room(as did the Yeti, and I'm sure other teams) that vouched for me when they needed to get their GM's ordeal straightened out and put scouting aside during that time period. So I was simultaneously shocked, but not shocked because I was valuable, I went where I expected, I just didnt think one of the 3 teams that didnt "actively" scout me would be the one to draft me.
I used what I learned to become a viable prospect in the league: I became the 3rd highest TPE-earning cornerback, I slid into the top 25 of TPE in my class after being at the default 50 entering the pre-season, I started writing various media pieces, I became more active in discord and the forums as I learned my way. All in all, I became a sponge, attempting to soak up all the information I could as use it to help me build my draft stock as high as possible.
I made an emphasis to promptly return all scouting messages, after a haphazard showing in DSFL scouting where I missed about 4 teams interviews. This time around, only 3 teams did not reach out to me, two teams in the Pacific Time Zone and one in the Eastern Time Zone, but two of the teams had real life issues that prevented them from properly scouting this season. So I definitely became a made man with the effort I put in.
The issue I expected was that I would become too good at a position of need and it would deter teams from trying to trade for me as the risk would be too high versus keeping extra picks and hoping I slipped deep in the draft. The fact I was a corner, I knew I would go in the first two rounds, I just didnt know where because of this dilemma. If a team took me over other max earning players, it would be a reach meanwhile, if teams let me fall to the 3rd or lower, I had a high chance of going anywhere as I would be one of the bigger steals going that late.
The other issues was players willing to position switch to fill in a hole on the team. We had a lot of high earning defensive players overlapping at the same positions and I felt that if teams with a hole in their CB pool passed me, then they hopefully had a plan for someone to position switch or any other alternative plan.
The teams I did expect to draft me were: Sarasota - because they were brand new and could use high earning players, plus they had two first round picks. Philadelphia - because they only have two corners on their depth chart(NSFL and DSFL) and one has stalled out in the low 200's of TPE. Yellowknife - because they only have two natural corners like Philadelphia, but their corners are S17 and S13. Orange County - because AJ Lattimer is retiring and they had no extra DSFL DB's coming into the draft. Baltimore was one of the teams, I mentioned earlier about not scouting me, but they had current players and ex-players in my locker room(as did the Yeti, and I'm sure other teams) that vouched for me when they needed to get their GM's ordeal straightened out and put scouting aside during that time period. So I was simultaneously shocked, but not shocked because I was valuable, I went where I expected, I just didnt think one of the 3 teams that didnt "actively" scout me would be the one to draft me.
